


The Beast You've Made

by trenchcoatonatardis



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Genre: PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-07-30
Packaged: 2018-04-12 00:25:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4458278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trenchcoatonatardis/pseuds/trenchcoatonatardis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the events of Twilight Princess, after Midna disappears back into the Twilight Realm, Link tries to adjust to life back in Ordon. But he isn't sure if he belongs there anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beast You've Made

The first few weeks were difficult.

In returning home, Link had hoped to return to simplicity, to the life he had led before the night had fallen and filled his world with shadow. The villagers welcomed him in, praised him and his victory, lavished him with gifts and food. It seemed that Rusl was all too happy to share the story of how he had fought beside the hero of legend. Ilia tried to smile at him through the crowd, and he nodded before letting a small smile play across his face in response.

They wanted him to rest, but he demanded to be put to work, to be given as much distraction as possible. Idleness was no longer an option for him. He went back to work at the ranch, attempting to return to a routine. He rose with the dawn and made his way to work with Epona, always happy to feel her strength beneath him. His unwavering companion.

At the end of the day, however, he found himself unable to sleep. As night fell and shadows stretched, unraveling their limbs and creeping across the soft grass, the people returned to their homes, blew out their lanterns and prepared for bed. Link sat at the edge of the ladder that led up to his house, his feet dangling as he gripped the railings, a small lamp beside him allowing tiny shadows to dance across the ground below him. The darkness filled up the air, reached down into his lungs and covered his eyes. 

Link slept through the next day.

He grew restless. As he slept less and less, he felt like he was on the edge of a cliff. Each snap of a twig or cry of a hawk had him reaching for his sword, only to find that it wasn't there. He continued to go to work as he could. No one faults him for his distractions, and he thinks that their constant kindness might be the worst thing of all.

The quiet of the Ordon Provence was relentless, an onslaught of nothingness that crawled inside of him and filled him with an aching emptiness. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~

It starts one night when he does manage to sleep. Link woke in his bed back home with a start, not knowing where he was, until he felt soft sheets on his skin and knew he had left Hyrule Field. His heart pounded and his lungs heaved as he struggled to find his bearings, before he saw that his bed was filled with leaves and twigs, his skin marred with scratches and cuts. He tasted blood on his lips.

When he went through town and up the hill to work, the shepherd was sitting in the field, some shape in front of him. When Link approached, he saw that the man was sitting in front of the half-eaten corpse of a goat.

Sensing Link’s presence, he turned. “Link…something attacked our goats last night.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The people are in an uproar. The town cat is gone, and three more goats have been killed. He keeps his distance, silently watches their confusion from afar. Unseen, Ilia watches him.

Link longs to protect them, to be the hero again that he once was. Tonight he will be ready, he will destroy the beast that is terrorizing his village. He will bring peace to Ordon once more. But when night falls he grows hungry, agitated. His skin bristles as if he can feel Twilight on his skin again.

When he feels himself change and his senses heighten, he knows.

He is the beast.

He runs as fast as he can out of the village, across the bridge and into Hyrule Field. He runs until he can’t see home anymore.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

When he wakes the next morning, he knows he does not belong here anymore. He knows he has to find her, has to find a way back into the Twilight. Each night he runs further, but always finds himself waking at home.

The more he loses himself, the more he knows he should have gone with her. There is no place for him in this world of light anymore. His home is lost to him. The others don’t speak to him anymore, their anger at his failure to act lying like a weight on his chest. Do they know?

When he runs at night, he longs to feel her on his back, her whispers and giggle floating like ghosts in his ears, making them twitch and his coat bristle.

In desperation he even returns to the spirit pool just outside of the village, risking the close proximity in order to speak to the only beings that might help him. But the pool is dark and silent, his howls echoing across the black water.

And so, he reaches further. He makes it all the way to Kakariko Village one night, Lake Hylia the next. Both pools are empty of light and sound, the once comforting feeling of the water leaving only cold in his bones. The spirits cannot help him now. 

He runs further and further, reaching out with his senses, hoping to see something, some indication that Twilight still exists, that there is a way back into her arms.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

He hasn’t been back in two days. Ilia waits at his house, feeds Epona, attempts to stroke her coat to calm her. But Epona is restless, uneasy.

Ilia and Epona wait by the bridge. Epona whinnies, a cry for her master. 

“I miss him too,” she whispers into Epona’s ear.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

He climbs the mountains, reaches the desert on the other side. He runs and runs until the pads of his feet are bloody, the hot sand burning beneath him, like fire even in the night, runs until he thinks he’s reached it. Looking around, Link senses with his ears and eyes and nose, breathes in his surroundings until he is sure. 

The fortress is gone. There is nothing but sand here. Where stone and pillars and a mirror had once stood, there was nothing. Only hot, burning sand as far as his wolf eyes can see.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ilia wakes with a start, her back pressed to Epona’s front legs where she had fallen asleep beside Link’s house. She pulls herself up and stretches, giving Epona a pat on her haunches. Then she sees it, the bloody footprint on the ladder to Link’s house. Her heart races, but she steels her nerve, and climbs.

She doesn’t recognize what she finds.

Bloody footprints lead to Link, asleep in his bed. His sheets are torn, his body covered in cuts and bruises, the palms of his hands and soles of his feet are raw and bleeding.

She wants to run, but then she hears him. He is whimpering, clawing at his sheets. Her breath catches as she hears it, the cry spilling out from his chest uncontrollably. He howls into the pillow.

She stumbles toward him, reaching out at this…this man she once knew, before she sits on the bed. She doesn’t know if he is awake, but she pulls his head into her lap and runs her hands through his matted fur – no, hair.

He shakes and whispers through his tears, “It’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone.”

Ilia thinks she hears him say “she”, but it is swallowed by a sob, his chest heaving, his hands clawing at her.


End file.
